![YeHaa ::!**!](./images/smilies/brain_yahoo.gif)
The machine I am running this on is very low grade at this point. It will not run Vista reliably at all, I tried it and switched back to XP, until the Windows 7 beta came out. Windows 7, on the other hand, runs very well with all the bells and whistles turned on, even though this machine is at the bottom of the minimum requirement range, which I believe says a lot about Microsoft’s having learned their lesson about Bloatware this time out. Since this is not my principal gaming machine I have not installed many of the other games other posters have mentioned. Windows 7 will run RRT 2 with no problems, and I also ran Gothic successfully, but not as extensively as RRT3, and 2. The only reason I have not gone ahead and installed Windows 7 on my main machine is that I still only have the release candidate and I would have to do a complete format and clean install for it and then again for the Final version when it comes out October 22. So I'm holding off until then, but I will go to Win 7 as soon as possible.
I highly recommend Win 7 to anyone who is running Vista now, Win 7 is able to install right over the top of it. For XP users, the only big caveat is that there is no direct upgrade path for XP, you have to reformat and do a clean install. Having said that, Windows new installation routine makes the reformat/clean install process very easy. The release candidate installed from scratch for me in less than 30 minutes an a slow computer. Of course the real time consuming part is reinstalling all your other programs. What I normally do in such cases is buy a new hard drive and install the new OS on that then use the old hard drive as a file backup. That way I save time and aggravation trying to remember if I backed up everything I need, before I wipe out the old system.